“It’s a little tense out there,” Kris said.
Melanie stirred a spoon idly around her coffee cup.
“This is all a mistake,” she said. “I don’t know anyone except you, and I don’t even actually know you. And now I’m spending an entire weekend with these guys.”
Kris was never impressed by women who made plans, then got depressed because they hadn’t thought them through. But Melanie had taken her in off the street, and helped her hold her head together in a situation where otherwise she would probably have lost her mind.
“Look,” she said, leaning forward, talking confidentially. “You don’t have to—”
“Boo-yah!” a male voice shouted.
Kris leapt halfway up the wall. Five guys surrounded their booth, standard issue dude bros in cargo shorts and button-up shirts. A muscle tee and a couple of porkpie hats added variety, otherwise they were all gym-toned, perfectly tanned, exquisitely coiffed examples of thirty-something white guys.
Melanie and Kris stared at them in horror.
“It’s me!” One of them with a sparse beard and a deep tan said, spreading his arms out. Melanie looked uncomprehending. “Hunter!”
Kris watched Melanie’s age drop five years as she let out a girlish high-pitched squeal, and then she and Hunter were hugging, rocking from side to side like clumsy dancers at an old folks’ home. They stepped back, held each other at arm’s length, then did it again. Kris could not follow this kind of radical mood swing. Everything hit maximum volume now that the boys were there.
“This is my crew,” Hunter said. “Chisolm, we all know what that rhymes with, Spencer”—the two fist bumped—“who just closed a mega-deal with me for some sweet condos over in the District, and last but not least, bringing up the rear, as always, Owen McSlowen.”
Everyone fell silent as they waited for Melanie to introduce her crew.
“Oh!” Melanie said. “This is Deidre. She’s a hitchhiker I gave a ride to in New Mexico. She’s awesome.”
The word hitchhiker immediately gave Kris an exotic air. No one hitchhiked anymore unless they were making a political statement. Hunter’s crew filtered into the booth, all eyes on Kris, squeezing Kris and Melanie against the wall, while Hunter squatted at the head of the table.
“How do you know she isn’t a serial killer?” he asked Melanie.
“I thought serial killers picked up hitchhikers,” Melanie said. “I don’t think they are hitchhikers.”
“She might be trying to confuse you,” Hunter said seriously, eyes locked on Kris.
Then he burst out laughing and broke eye contact.
“We’re just messing with you,” he said, and held out a fist. Kris bumped it with her knuckles. “That’s awesome. Roaming the US of A. Nothing tying you down.”
Spencer started to eat their toast. Slowen asked if Kris was finished with her bacon.
“So when do we leave?” Melanie asked, eyes shining. “I’ve been waiting all summer.”
“Ask the navigator,” Hunter said, and Chisolm pulled out his Android and laid it on the table.
“So the concert is up in Strawberry Valley,” he said, showing them on Google Maps. “That’s near where they used to do the atomic bomb tests and less than a hundred miles from Area 51.”
“It’s why he’s doing it there,” Slowen said. “They said the radioactive sand attracts UFOs. Koffin’s going to do an extraterrestrial summoning on Sunday night.”
“So our boy Jones is holding the campsite,” Chisolm continued. “Along with about four hundred thousand other people. Last night was madness, so let’s haul ass and get up there fast. We’ll come back early Sunday because all the bands that day are bullshit doomcore acts, so we’re not missing anything. Traffic’s going to be a bitch.”
Melanie looked like a kid getting ready to go to summer camp, clamping her hands between her thighs and rocking back and forth with excitement.
“Do I follow you up in my car?” she asked.
“Why don’t you park it at my place?” Hunter asked.
Kris instantly spotted it. They were going to take this girl up into the wilderness without her own way home. She would be totally at her mercy.
“Mel—” she began.
“Awesome!” Melanie said. “I’ll see where you live! I want to meet Lars!”
“Here he is,” Hunter said, and showed her a picture of an Irish setter mix on his cell phone.
“Aw…he’s a cutie,” Melanie said, and showed it to Kris. “Are you a dog person?”
“I should get going,” Kris said, wondering how the hell she was going to get to Strawberry Valley. She reached into her pocket for her nine dollars. Maybe if she moved slowly enough, Melanie would offer to pay for breakfast instead.
“I know what!” Melanie said.
Kris realized the girl was staring at her.
“Do you still have that ticket, the extra one?” Melanie asked Hunter.
“I was going to sell it at the gate,” Hunter said. “It’s $150.”
“Come with us, Kris,” Melanie said. “You can use it.”
The boys looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t know if we have room, Pixie Sticks,” Hunter said, and Kris instantly hated the way he just assigned a nickname to a woman he’d only met twenty minutes ago.
“You’ve got two trucks,” Melanie said in a suddenly serious voice that brooked no bullshit. “Of course you have room.”
Hunter cocked his head and considered the tabletop for a minute. “All right,” he said. “It’s all yours. But you owe me. For the ticket.”
“I can’t do that,” Kris said. This was too much. “I should get going.”
“No, wait,” Melanie said. “Come here.”
She slid out of the booth, and Kris saw her as these boys saw her: a young girl with soft curves, wide eyes, shorts that showed off too much leg, a tight top. She seemed exposed and vulnerable in a way she hadn’t when they’d been alone together.
Melanie took Kris by the elbow and guided her to the hostess stand.
“I’m not taking your $150 ticket,” Kris said.
“Listen,” Melanie whispered, looking over at the boys and flashing them a smile, then ducking out of sight in front of Kris, her face getting serious. “I don’t know these guys. I know Hunter, but not these other four. And now I’m getting in their car and going camping with them in the middle of nowhere for two days. I’m not bringing you because we’re best friends, I’m bringing you because I get a feeling you can take care of yourself, and I need some insurance. I may be young, Deidre, but I’m not stupid.”
Suddenly, all her problems were solved at once. Black Iron Mountain was looking for her traveling alone. Now she’d be traveling in two trucks with a bunch of rowdy boys, like she was their cool aunt. She’d have a ride to Hellstock, and she’d be making Melanie feel safer and repaying her for the ride and the room.
“I’ll go,” Kris said. “But I can’t pay you back for the ticket.”
“If you keep me from getting murdered, it’s worth the $150,” Melanie said. Then her face lit up like a little girl again and she charged back to the table, leading Kris by the arm.
“Woohoo!” she cheered. “Deidre is going!”
They settled back down to general merriment and inane conversation. After putting up with enough of it to seem polite, Kris said, “I’m going upstairs to shower. Then we’ll leave?”
“Sure thing,” Melanie said, and Kris left the table.
Banter continued until Hunter saw Kris get into the lobby elevator and the doors close. Then he turned to the table.
“Holy shit,” he whisper-breathed.
“Jesus Christ,” Spencer said.
“What are you guys talking about?” Melanie asked.
“That’s her,” Hunter said.
“Who
?” Melanie asked. “What did she do?”
“The chick you’re with,” Hunter said. “Oh my god, you’re clueless. That’s adorable. She’s the one trying to kill Terry Hunt. That’s Kris Pulaski.”
“No,” Melanie said. Then thought it over for a second and did a verbal double take. “Nooooo.”
“Yes,” Hunter said. “Show her.”
Chisolm spun his phone around. Melanie looked. A photo from about seven years ago of Kris, plus a police sketch of how she probably looked today. The set of the jaw, the thin mouth, the sharp cheekbones, the intense stare—even in a crappy police sketch it was obvious.
Melanie sat back and put her hand over her mouth.
“Oh, my shit,” she said.
The four guys looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Oh, shit!” Spencer said.
“Whaaaat?” Slowen asked.
“She really didn’t know!” Hunter said, laughing. He pulled Melanie’s face to him and kissed the top of her head. “You are the most trusting person I ever met,” he said.
Everyone razzed her, in good spirits, until Melanie got serious.
“I can’t narc on her,” she said.
“No one’s asking you to narc,” Hunter said. “But she’s going to try to kill him. I mean, you could probably be arrested as an accessory.”
“Not before now,” Chisolm, who was a tax lawyer, said. “Now that you know her identity, the burden is on you to do something about it since there is a high likelihood that a crime will be committed.”
Melanie sat in the middle of their urging and coaxing and bantering, shaking her head. Refusing to believe it, but actually knowing it was true. It made too much sense.
“You picked her up in New Mexico,” Hunter said. “That’s right after she killed that guy she was traveling with. I can’t believe everyone in America has been looking for this skank and you had her in the front seat of your car the whole time, doing a Thelma and Louise.”
“I won’t turn her in,” Melanie said.
“The cool thing is,” Hunter said, “that 800 number isn’t a cop number, it’s a hotline run by Terry Hunt. So it’s not like you’d be turning her in to the cops.”
“I guess I could call anonymously,” Melanie said.
“Anonymously?” Hunter said. “Are you kidding? If it’s Terry Hunt, he’ll owe you his life. He’ll give you VIP tickets. We’ll get to go backstage. Dude, this is your chance.”
“Give me a minute,” Melanie said, grabbing her phone off the table and sliding out of the booth. “Don’t call anyone. I need to think.”
Outside on the baking sidewalk, she walked in circles, threading her way through the rubberneckers watching the tow truck pull the Honda off the casino fence. She couldn’t do this to Deidre—Kris. Who would have her back over the weekend at Hellstock? Although Hunter and these guys would be so grateful to her if she got them backstage that they’d probably treat her like a goddess. But this was wrong. She would call upstairs on the house phone and tell Kris to run, then call the tip line. Would they let her up to get her clothes out of the room or would they put crime scene tape all over it?
Melanie’s wanderings took her close to the car crash. Everyone had their phones out, taking pictures of an enormous blood smear on the sidewalk, like someone had swiped it with a gory mop. There was a single white Reebok in the gutter.
“That’s where the kid hit his head,” one bystander said in a slight Russian accent. “I heard it all the way up the block. It sounded like a watermelon exploding.”
Melanie felt sick and her vision swam in the heat. People shouldn’t get hurt like this. These were real people’s pain these tourists were taking pictures of. Overcome with nausea, she shoved her way through the crowd, away from the crash. It was disgusting the way people got off on other people getting hurt. Why did people want to hurt each other all the time?
Why did Kris want to kill Terry?
She looked at the empty shoe, forgotten in the gutter. She thought about Greg yelling at his video game, pretending to murder strangers over and over again. She thought about a bullet shattering Terry Hunt’s face. She thought about the scabs all over Kris’s scalp from her not-husband.
People had to stop hurting each other.
* * *
– – –
Kris got out of the shower. She opened the door to the room and called, “Melanie?” to see if the girl had come back yet. No answer.
She left the bathroom door open and changed into her new clothes. The shorts were shorter than she’d have liked, and she wished she still had her Bones with her. Not having a suitcase, she shoved her Roswell T-shirt into the plastic shopping bag. She’d have to borrow a jacket from Melanie. It got cold in the desert.
The closer she got to Terry, the more it seemed like Troglodyte was opening doors. She tried to think if there was anything in “Sailing the Seas of Blood” or “One Life, One Bullet” about this part of the journey. Did Hunter and those guys come up in any way?
She couldn’t place them on the album. She’d just keep moving forward. JD and Scottie Rocket, all those sad souls trapped at Well in the Woods—there were a lot of things Terry needed to answer for.
She felt herself picking up momentum, moving faster as she approached the center. She didn’t feel happy, but she was filled with grim satisfaction that she was off Terry’s map and the initiative was hers. She was coming at him from his blind spot now.
Melanie knocked on the door.
“Hold on,” Kris said, toweling her hair, walking to answer.
The kid had probably misplaced her keys. Kris looked through the peep hole. It was black.
The knock came again.
“Ma’am?” a muffled voice said. “UPS.”
DR. CRAIG BORWIN: …got black helicopters, white noise generators, cell phone jammers, the city is occupied territory. This morning, a shell company registered the domain name NevadaStrong.com. Something big is coming.
TODD FIXX: Who is the enemy?
DR. CRAIG BROWN: We don’t know anymore. It could be Soros-funded antifa terrorists, NWO goons wearing FEMA IDs, ATF, the deep state, no one knows who it will be because they are always one step ahead. They monitor everyone. They listen to everything. I implore all patriots to lock down their property, assume an armed posture, and be ready for anything.
—Genesis Communications Network On Demand Radio, “Fixxing Freedom”
September 7, 2019
he traffic jam was epic. Hour after hour of slow rolling and sudden stops, people getting out and strolling between cars, sitting in lawn chairs on the side of the highway. But in the late afternoon they finally edged over the rise and saw Strawberry Valley and Melanie forgot to breathe.
A massive comet made of garbage had hit the desert, leaving behind a trash-strewn crater. Drones crisscrossed the sky. Rows of tents stretched to the horizon, flatlands of parked cars sparkled under the blazing sun. Cars crept beneath a three-story-tall spider made of scrap metal straddling the road, and a vivid fiberglass clown’s head on top of a merry-go-round spewed fire.
“Aaand there goes the network,” Spencer said, as the three dots on his phone turned into “No Service.”
Cellular coverage in Strawberry Valley was never good, but the 440,000 people, plus 21,000 support staff, plus 5,000 volunteers broke its back.
“I’ve never seen so many tents,” Melanie said.
“It’s pretty in-tents,” Hunter said, and everyone busted out laughing.
Melanie wondered where Kris was. She wondered if Kris understood. She knew she’d done the right thing because the boys had spent all morning reassuring her, but she couldn’t seem to stop feeling like she’d betrayed her friend. Looking out over all those parked cars, the lines of tents stretched beneath her, she thought they looked like rows and rows of graves.
*
* *
– – –
The four UPS men wore brown shorts, their dark brown socks pulled up tight, their hairy knees sticking out. They had a pass key.
They poured into her room, making it small. They didn’t talk. Two of them took her by the arms and laid her on the bed, holding her down, while the other two searched the room. It took them five seconds. Then they put on the chain lock, closed the curtains, and turned on the bedside lamp.
“I’m going to scream,” Kris said.
The one holding down her shoulders put his finger to his lips and shook his head once. Kris gathered her breath. When she opened her mouth to scream, he placed his hand on the bottom of her ribcage and stabbed his thumb into her diaphragm, hard and deep. All the air whooshed out of her in one big rush. So did the $3.99 breakfast special. She turned her head so it landed mostly on the pillow.
Another UPS driver examined the bathrobe belt, rejected it, and settled on the iron. He yanked the cord out and tested its strength. Kris watched him take it into the bathroom. In the room mirror, she saw him tie it into a noose and loop it over the shower head.
“I want to talk to Terry,” Kris said.
The two UPS drivers with her looked at each other and one of them produced a bottle of Paxator. That’s when Kris realized that all four drivers looked identical. Each one was dark-haired and trim, with a neat mustache lying across their upper lip.
The one who’d jabbed her diaphragm gripped her jaw in one big hand, his fingers digging into its hinge. The other took a Paxator out of the plastic bottle and held it up.
“Package,” he said.
Kris knew that meant he wanted her to open her mouth. She shook her head. The one holding her jaw squeezed, and the way his fingers pressed into her glands gave her no choice. Her mouth creaked open. The driver popped the pill inside. His fingertips tasted salty. Then he relaxed his grip on her jaw.
“Sign here,” he said.
And Kris knew that meant swallow.
* * *
– – –
The sun slammed down on Strawberry Valley. Their tent was by the Google Challenge Zone, where the noise acts played, and in the scorching heat haze the distant sound of crashing chords and an amplified male voice shouting at the crowd felt like a dream. Girls in bikinis and sunglasses strolled past, shirtless guys walked by wearing gas masks, wearing bong masks, wearing skeleton bandanas that turned the lower halves of their faces into grinning skulls. A makeup crew from LA had opened a zombie workshop, and the living dead shambled through the tent city, red Solo cups in hand. Mountain bikes rolled by, hover boards got jammed in the sand, the few cops Melanie saw were on four-wheelers.
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